IE 6 error...needs to close

Hi everyone. I hope you all had a great Christmas and a super New Year!

Down to business.

I have a user with a IE6 problem.
The desktop shortcut to Internet won't let you start a browser session. Neither will the IE link within the start menu. You can access IE via Windows Explorer, but eventually you'll get kicked out.

The error message is:
Microsoft Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close.

The system is a Dell Optiplex GX270
Windows 2000 (all services packs)
Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (any services packs I could find)

Program Name: iexplore.exe (6.0.2800.1106)
Module Name: shell32.dll (5.0.3700.6705)

This is the closest thing I could find, but this system doesn't have shell64.dll on it.

It doesn't matter how many times IE is started, the module is always the same.

The error only occurs within IE. No other program is affected.
It wouldn't be a problem, but this user needs to access the web for customer assistance.

Any suggestions??? Thanks in advance folks!

(oh yeah...did the usual search with BHOdemon, AdAware, and Search & Destroy....nothing out of the ordinary)
(also, no virus)

Install/Uninstall in control panel. Try to repair IE 6. If that fails, remove IE 6. Reboot. Make sure IE 5.5 works. Install update again.

IE doesn't appear in the Add/Remove Programs group. Reinstallation of IE6 did nothing to help. Made sure all cookies were gone, history clean, temp files gone, all squeeky clean.